The Liceo Euclide in Cagliari started up in 2005 with only six classes: two specializing in classical studies and four specializing in the sciences. Now, at the beginning of its seventh year, the Liceo Euclide has 35 classes and more than 700 students.
From the beginning our school has undertaken an intense exchange activity taking part in various projects with European schools, both under the Comenius label and independently funded and organised by the schools involved.
The school also hosted some Comenius Assistants from France and Denmark during the school years 2006/2007 and 2007/2008. Moreover, some of the school teachers have been supported in the development of their teaching skills and have taken part in different refresher courses abroad, also promoted and financed by the EU.
The Liceo Euclide has taken part in the following exchange projects:
2007 – Comenius Multilateral Project "Steady European development of my school. Past, Present, Future." with Bulgaria, France, Spain and Lithuania
2007 – Comenius Bilateral Project “Nature and enviromental awareness in Mediterranean Area” with Finland
2008 – Comenius Multilateral Project “Water, a source of life” with Spain, Germany and Turkey
2009 – Bilateral Exchange “ Why we want to be European” – independent project jointly organized with the school SSGN Nejmegen, Netherlands
2010 – Comenius Multilateral Project “How to avoid crimes and being offended on the Internet” with Poland, Croatia, Romania and Turkey
The Multilateral project 2010/2012
The ongoing Multilateral project “How to avoid crimes and being offended on the Internet” involves our school together with four schools from Poland, Romania, Croatia and Turkey.
The project coordinator is State High School “Nicolaus Copernicus” in Bielsko-Biala, Poland.
Three exchange visit have been made so far: Poland (October 2010), Croatia (February 2011), “Gimnazija Matita Mesić” in Slavonski Brod), Italy (April 2011).
During the visit we held meetings among the teachers who work on the project, conferences about topics connected with the Internet, meetings among all the participants during which the students have shown all the works carried out with relation to the project or about the culture, history, traditions and natural environment of the different Countries. There have also been visits to the most interesting historical and natural places in every Country, extremely useful to grant a reciprocal appreciation of the different Countries and Regions.
As far as our school is concerned, the groups that took part in the past visits abroad were composed by two teachers and four to six students.
The students actively involved in the project are 22 and belong to different classes, but whole classes have been involved in order to realize other activities connected to the project.
The project focuses on the awareness of the crimes that can be committed while using the Internet, the prevention of the attacks to which anyone is subject when browsing the Web and the development of the knowledge regarding the Wide World Web.
The goal of most of the many activities that the students were asked to carry out is to increase the awareness in the use of the web and in the resources that are offered to the young people.
A look to the activities…
Each activity and research is associated with the production of materials as:
- writing and publication of articles;
- preparation of multimedia presentations;
- production of short videos, with shooting and editing made by the students;
- creation, distribution and analysis of questionnaires about the use of the Internet;
- report, in multimedia and text form, of the visit to a local Internet provider and of an interview to an expert in computer hacking;
- publicizing the project activities through events held in the schools distribution of materials (posters and brochures) related to the project topic.
… and to the results
As regards the didactic results that a project like the one just described can foster, some of the most important are:
- a development of the students' ability to work in a coordinated and cooperative way;
- a development of the students' research ability (including the appropriate use of the Internet);
an improvement of the skills in the usage of educational and computer technologies;
an improvement in the language skills (L1 and L2);
a development in the students' abilities to perform analyses and synthesis;
the awareness of a European dimension in one's cultural identity;
the development of adaptability and communication, in general.
The monitoring questionnaires distributed to the students and their parents and conversations
between the involved teachers and the parents have given positive feedbacks about the taking part
in the project, as the students' families have been involved both in hosting the foreign students
and in organizing some of the activities.
A new Comenius Project
Let's conclude with the news that Liceo Euclide has been financed in order to take part in a new
multilateral Comenius project: “ Challenges of eco-citizenship In Europe”.
The main theme of the project is sustainable development and the improvement in the general
awareness about the need of “sustainable” behaviours.
The cultural aspects of this project involve the scientific field (Biology and Ecology) but also the
philosophical, ethical and artistic ones in connection with the personal responsibility that any single
human being has to behave in a sustainable way towards the natural environment and all the other
fellow men.
Marco Pani – Stefania Perrier
Liceo Classico-Scientifico “Euclide” – Cagliari